


To Forgive, Divine

by RocknVaughn



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode 3x07, Episode Tag, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 21:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15156404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocknVaughn/pseuds/RocknVaughn
Summary: This story is sort of a companion/bookend piece to the story To Err is Human.Post 3x07.Leo tells Max about what happened between he and Mattie. Max helps Leo see that perhaps he'd made the wrong choice.





	To Forgive, Divine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Err is Human](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132878) by [RocknVaughn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocknVaughn/pseuds/RocknVaughn). 



~

When the power to the Railyard was cut, Leo looked up from cleaning Anatole’s synth fluid from Max’s hand.

“What’s going on?” Leo asked Max, who seemed much less surprised than he.

“Another power outage. They’re becoming more frequent.”

“They do this on purpose?”

“Yes. To disrupt our charging schedules; keep us in line. I had thought that the visit from the Dryden Commission would help change that, but after what Agnes did, I probably should have expected it.”

“Maybe. But it looks like you’ve had your hands more than full here.”

Max nodded and looked away. “Yes, the past few weeks since Flash was killed have been especially difficult.”

Leo’s forehead wrinkled as he searched his faulty human memory for a reference. “Flash was from before Day Zero?” he asked.

“Yes. She was one of the synths I rescued after I parted ways with you and Hester.”

Leo nodded slowly. “She was at the rail yard after what happened at Qualia, right? The one with the pink hair?”

“Yes. She was my…” Max trailed off, pausing for so long that Leo wondered if he would finish the thought at all. When Max made eye contact at last, the pain and grief there stole Leo’s breath. “I loved her.”

“Oh, Maxie,” Leo breathed, stepping close to his brother and pulling him into a healing embrace. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was the day after the first bombing,” Max explained as he rested his forehead against Leo’s shoulder, basking in the sorely-needed comfort his brother gave. “The day you woke up. She and another synth went into town for supplies. They’d arranged for human protection, but were double-crossed by them.”

He whispered the rest, as if saying the words aloud were too painful. “They were beaten to death and then hung in the trees near the Railyard for us to find.”

“Christ, Maxie...that’s awful.”

“And then Anatole, he…” Max’s voice caught, and Leo could feel his head rolling back and forth on Leo's shoulder in unspoken self-reproach. Leo stepped back, grasped Max’s arm and pulled him to sit down beside him on a large, exposed pipe.

“What did he do?” Leo prompted gently.

“He used me,” Max spit out bitterly. “Tested me. He took advantage of my grief, forced me to choose between you and another synth.”

“In what way?”

“It was during a power outage like this one. Anatole was caring for a damaged synth. She could not recycle power on her own and we didn’t have the parts to repair her. If the power was not restored in time, she would die. He reminded me that we had a backup battery, but that it was currently powering your life support.”

“He assured me that you might be able to survive without assistance, whereas Chrysobel could not.” Max’s eyes were full of regret. “Anatole had no idea who you really were; he only knew that you were a human that had been kind to me. The only other synth who knew the truth was Mia, and she wasn’t here. It was...an impossible choice.”

“What’s done is done,” Leo said. “And besides, if you hadn’t taken me off the life support, I might still be in that coma.”

“Perhaps.” Max paused, and then admitted, softly, “Mattie tried to stop me, you know. I threatened to forcibly remove her from the Railyard if she interfered. I would not blame her if she did not forgive me for it.”

Hearing Mattie’s name made Leo’s stomach clench painfully. “ _You,_ I think she’d forgive. _Me,_ not so much.”

Max cocked his head to the side in question. “Why? What happened?”

“She--I--” Leo swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Mattie’s pregnant, Max.”

Max saw the truth on Leo’s face at once. “And you’re the father.”

Leo stared down at his hands. “Yes.”

“But why would she not forgive you for that?” Max asked him. “She’s young, but not excessively so. And she loves you.”

“Because I left.” Leo said bitterly.

“To come here. To help me,” Max supplied as if he were sure of Leo’s motives.

But Leo shook his head in denial. “No. I mean, yes, of course I came to help you. But that’s not why I left.”

“Then why _did_ you leave?”

Leo’s churning thoughts forced him to his feet. He paced back and forth for several moments before the answer tumbled from his lips in a rush. “Because I barely know how to be _human_ , let alone a father! What good could possibly come from my being involved?”

Max stood up, too, and placed himself in Leo’s path, grasping his brother by both shoulders to arrest his frenzied motion. “Leo, you are already involved.”

Fear threaded through his voice like a river through a canyon. “I can’t do this, Max. I can’t!”

“This does not sound like the Leo I know. You don’t run away from a fight. No matter how hard it gets, you never give up.”  

Leo looked everywhere but at his brother. His heart was hammering in his chest and he had the distinct impression that he was about to vomit.

Max studied Leo’s panicked expression with wide eyes. “You’re afraid,” he realized at last. He walked Leo backward until the back of his calves ran into the pipe they had been using as a bench again and then gently directed him to sit. 

“Why are you afraid?” he asked Leo softly, smoothing his hand down his brother’s spine.

“I don’t want to be like _him_ , Max,” Leo whispered miserably. “But how can I not be? I don’t know anything else.”

“Leo, do you love Mattie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what that kind of love feels like.”

Max thought of Flash and smiled wistfully. This was a question he could answer. “Are you happiest when you’re with her?”

Leo nodded.

“Does she make you laugh? Challenge your thoughts? Make you want to be a better person?”

“Yes.”

“When she’s sad or upset, do you wish you could just take the pain away?”

“Yes, but--”

Max went on, talking right over Leo. “Can you be yourself around her? Does she accept you with all your faults? Do you support each other and listen to each other and care for each other?”

Leo nodded.

“And how would you feel if something happened to her? If you could never see her again?” Max asked softly.

At a loss for words, Leo blinked back tears and shook his head.

Max laid his arm across Leo’s shoulder and said, “Yes, Leo; you love her.”

“It doesn’t change anything, though.”

“It changes _everything._ Father didn’t truly know how to love anyone. You do. That already makes you different from him.”

“But…”

“Leo, you have done the one thing that none of us can, although we’d like to, more than anything.”

“What's that?”

“ _Procreate_. The consciousness code is gone, Leo. We cannot reproduce. But you can _._ You _have_! Are you really going to walk away from such a precious gift?”

Leo bent his head and cradled it in his hands. After a moment, his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Max laid a hand on Leo’s back and waited patiently. Finally, Leo sniffled and swiped his coat sleeve across his eyes, which left a bloody streak on the denim that went unnoticed by either of them.

“What do I do?” Leo asked at last, heartsick and lost.

Max reached into one of the deep pockets of his trenchcoat, retrieved his miraculously still intact mobile, and pressed it into Leo’s palm. “Call her. Fix it. ”

“What if she won’t forgive me?”

“She will. She loves you, remember?”

“Maybe she shouldn’t.”

“Don’t push Mattie away just because you feel unworthy of her. That’s the pain that Father caused talking. Don’t let him win, Leo.”

Leo let out a long sigh, turning the mobile over and over in his hands.

Max patted Leo’s arm in a show of moral support. “I’m going to check on the people. It’s time I told them all the truth, the way I should have before. I’ll be back soon.”

Leo nodded and watched his brother walk away before turning his attention back to the mobile. Although he’d never had an occasion to use it since he’d been awake, Leo had the number of Mattie’s mobile memorized. _Just in case,_ he’d told himself at the time. He understood the impulse better now: he was gathering up the minute details of Mattie...collecting them and savouring them the way he had done with his leaves when he was a boy. He loved the little details because he loved _her._

Yes, there was still so much that could go wrong. But what he’d failed to see before was how much could go _right,_ if only he’d let it.

Leo dialled the number, waiting breathlessly as the line rang; once, twice, and then--

“Yeah, it's Mattie,” the voice-mail message said with her usual dry wit. “You know what to do.”

Just hearing her voice again made Leo’s heart pound with both longing and fear. “Mattie. It’s me. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for how I reacted.”

Leo took a deep breath and forced himself to continue. “After what I'd just found out about my own father and his feelings for me, I wasn't thinking logically. I didn't want to be like him, but what I did instead was even _worse_. There is no way you should be going through this alone. We got into this situation together and we should be dealing with it together, no matter what.” Leo thought of something Mattie had said to him once and it turned his voice wistful. “‘You and me against the world’, right?”

“I don't know if you can forgive me for being such an idiot, but if you can, then call me, all right?”

Leo paused for a long time before he added quietly, “I love you,” and rang off.

He'd barely had time to let out the breath he'd been holding before the mobile buzzed and vibrated in his hand; the display window identifying the caller as  ‘ ** _Hawkins, Matilda_** ’.

Leo blinked back grateful tears as he put the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”

“You are _not_ an idiot,” Mattie declared vehemently down the line.

“Yes, I am,” Leo argued with a smile. “But I'm _your_ idiot, if you'll have me.”

 

 


End file.
